Paul Among The People--1 Corinthians 7:21-23
Day 12
I think Paul had a hand in the US Civil War, if I think about it just a little.
Maybe not exactly, but the interpretation (or misinterpretation) of his Scripture about slavery was certainly all the Southern states needed to justify, morally, the widespread practice of slavery.
In Paul Among The People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, Sarah Ruden highlights the problem of Paul’s verses that cost the United States 750,000 dead in the four years of the Civil War, sparked by South Carolina shelling Ft. Sumter on April 12, 1861, as a response to Abraham Lincoln’s election as president:
“We really want Paul to have been against slavery, but the evidence is galling. It’s not that he was for slavery, it’s quite unlikely…It’s that he doesn’t seem to have cared one way or another…In 1 Corinthians 7:21-23, he states that slavery is nothing, that slaves should just get on with their religious lives.”
1 Corinthians 7:21-23 does seem pretty callous to modern day readers.
1 Corinthians 7:21-23 21 Were you called as a slave? Do not let it concern you. But if you are also able to become free, take advantage of that. 22 For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave, is the Lord’s freed person; likewise the one who was called as free, is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought for a price; do not become slaves of people.
A lot of room for Southerners of that time to cherry-pick the interpretation that fit their “peculiar institution.”
J. Albert Harrill describes in Revisiting the Problem of 1 Corinthians 7:21 how Richard Fuller, the founder of the Southern Baptists (!!!) used Paul’s verses to defend slavery in a public debate back in 1840’s:
“Let me go a little into detail,” Fuller replied with a burst of erudition on the depths of his education in biblical scholarship: “All the Greek fathers, and many eminent commentators, maintain that the true meaning of 1 Corinthians 7:21 is ‘Even if liberty may be thine, remain rather in the state of the slave, as it is propitious to piety.’
Wow. If you’re a slave, too bad, I guess, because ALL believers are Christ’s slave–whether you are a freedman or not.
But back up, does Paul really not care about slavery?
During Paul’s time in the Roman Empire, slavery was as prevalent in Corinth as a social institution as it was in the pre-Civil War South.
A lot of the people in Corinth were slave-owners or slaves themselves. The history of the Roman Empire (as detailed in the Old Testament) is a welter of war and invasions, and taking conquered peoples as slaves was de rigueur.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians (and later in his letter to Philemon), offers a message of hope and dignity to the oppressed and enslaved.
Which is, when taken into context of that time, revolutionary thought.
Jurgen Moltmann writes in Experiences in Theology:
“The expression “the Lord” is none other than the assurance of freedom for the enslaved people. It has nothing to do with the lords who are enslaving them, and nothing to do with male domination either.”
I just about almost see just how revolutionary Paul’s words must have been.
Before Paul’s message, slaves were nothing socially, no more important to a freedman than a chair or table might be, and had nothing really in their lives that provided hope of ever being anything more than a tool for the master’s labor.
When I get down spiritually and emotionally and I can’t see a way out of my suffering, remembering Jesus’ work on the cross for me, for my salvation, my little piece of eternity that awaits me, always boosts me back up into being able to function.
What are my worldly problems compared to eternity with my Lord?
So, I can understand how the slaves in Paul’s time, in the Roman Empire, might get a flicker of hope and dignity from his message of faith.
John Piper explains who a slave’s real master is in The Freest People Are The Servants of All:
“Since Christ has come and died and risen to reign, is that our absolute allegiance to him relativizes all other allegiances. That is, we serve in all other relationships at his bidding, not because of their intrinsic authority over us. Which means that wherever those relationships contradict what he calls us to do, his authority takes precedence.”
But Paul doesn’t quite say it that way.
In his ambiguity, Paul left the door wide open for Southerners to say, “Look, Paul says so what if you’re a slave, get on with your religious life!”
Jeremy Punt offers an explanation for Paul’s apparent reticence to condemn slavery in Identity and Human Dignity Amidst Power:
“A reasonable conclusion is that Paul was deliberately ambiguous, and meant to suggest that concern about social status and position did not match up with giving expression to living according to God’s calling. What would the implications have been in the first century, and what are contemporary readers to make of it in the 21st century? Such questions are important when on the one hand Paul is perceived not to have been a quietist intent on preserving the status quo but rather consciously and constantly challenging it. On the other hand Paul appears to have strived to establish his authority in the Corinthian community with its different groups and aspiring leaders.”
For Paul to condemn the institution of slavery in Corinth, would be like condemning farmers, sheepherders, and craftsmen.
Why outlaw tables and chairs?
Different times–maybe.
I don’t remember an election cycle as downright weird as the one we are tumbling through right now.
The evidence of our brokenness as a country is but a chyron running on the screens of our minds all day long.
Trump almost assassinated, Biden being pushed out of the presidency.
As tumultuous as the days when Lincoln won the presidential election leading to You-Know-What?
You never know.
Pray up. We were all bought for a price. 🙂
Lord, we thank You for the freedom we have through Jesus Christ. Help us to understand that we are free from the bondage of sin through Him.
Lord, grant us the strength and wisdom to serve You faithfully in whatever situation we are in.
Amen.